Follow on Twitter please: @rgroveslaw. I am the Director of the Business Law Program at Florida Coastal School of Law, which includes sports law issues. But before becoming an attorney I had a mother and father too. I was fortunate because if they gave me a penny I would owe them change. I became a tax judge and split the baby on occasion but tried most to be fair. After deciding I would rather be inspired to work harder and trust the journey than be uninspired and not work as hard, I went into private practice and became an equity partner of Howard & Howard Attorneys P.C., and counsel to Lewis & Munday, PC. I've represented multi-national corporations in multi-million dollar transactions and high profile entertainers in business and tax matters. Passion continues to be the plasma of progression as now I hope to share how good the profession can be to the new generation of counsel. So now I am a law professor, teaching business entities, securities, international business transactions, and the business side of sports. The passion includes writing. I authored a book, "Innocence in the Red Zone" regarding a client and former Michigan State head football coach Bobby Williams and several other articles regarding business, tax, and entrepreneurship. But my deepest passion - beyond family, is musical. I played piano for Magic Johnson's wedding, opened for Stevie Wonder, had a song recorded by Jerry Butler, and wrote a book about playing piano by ear with a soulful style - all eclipsed by writing songs for one's own wedding.

The Masters Without Tiger Woods Is Like...

We, the consumers of golf, are spoiled. For a solid two decades, we have only seen a Masters golf event with Tiger Woods. The 2014 edition will have Mr. Woods on the injury woodpile via his own withdrawal. He is still the number one golfer on the planet, despite his injuries and inability to win the majors. Since the outset of the 2013 season, we should remember that he has won the WGC BridgestoneBridgestone, the Players, the Farmer’s Insurance Open, the Arnold Palmer Championship, and the WGC Cadillac. We still don’t know how popular golf would be without him in the current era.

But Tiger’s eclecticism lacks elasticity. He can’t seem to defy the band width of age and gravity. I know Jack Nicklaus won his last Masters at age 46. I know Tiger is only 38. But the competition these days is better conditioned than when Gunsmoke was on television. The young pups push the physicality envelope for anyone trying to stay in the game. That is to say, like basketball, it is becoming a younger person’s game.

I think the answer is unfortunately distasteful at least in part. Distasteful because we sports purists loathe the reality role of the media. We depend on what the oligarchical TV commentators give us to view and what they tell us about player performances. The answer unavoidably involves how well the media creates the type of hero worshiping and then hero hating that happened with Tiger. Must there by eye-popping performance before the phenomena? If that were the case, baseball, where the players stand around doing nothing for the majority of several hours would have no TV contracts. Some people just love the sport and endure the tradeoffs. Others love the anticipation and construct their own internal drama-meter. The same should carry the day for golf.

Can TV commentators and social media find a story line based on less-than-heroic performance that keeps the ratings high?

I suspect the answer is yes. As long as there is to-the-last-hole-drama, there are enough players to generate the views that in turn generate the sponsorships and advertisers to maintain a profitable and qualitative Masters. I suspect about as many golf addicts would watch the last two Masters winners for example (Adam Scott and Bubba Watson) duke it out on 18. Admittedly, it would be like an NBA Final without the Celtics or the Lakers, a World Series without the Yankees or the Red Sox. And that may trim off some of the non-addicted. But I am willing to bet my betraying set of clubs that the Masters ratings this year will depend more on the drama than the legends. And if we can count on media sources to be skilled at anything, it is creating drama where most of us did not see it.

In any event, this Masters should give us a glimpse of a post-Tiger era fan analytics. If the sport’s gatekeepers are smart, they will use the ratings data and demographics to predict the future interest of the sport. Though Tiger will very likely be back in the short term, it will be interesting to see how the sport will be sold to the public in anticipation of his inevitable absence.

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